International Family Values

The International School of Amsterdam (ISA) was established in 1964 by a manager of a U.S. corporation working in Amsterdam who needed an expat school for his own children. ISA has grown enormously since then, with the capacity to enroll 950 day students, from Pre-school through Grade 12. With students representing more than 50 nationalities, ISA prepares students to become “enlightened world citizens.”

For the last decade, Director of Admissions Julia True has shaped the student body and shepherded the transition of each new family into the school community. The story she tells when asked “What’s special about the International School of Amsterdam?” has three parts: the International Baccalaureate; Harvard’s Project Zero; and a focus on families.

ISA is a leader in international education, a model school for the International Baccalaureate. Many ISA faculty were involved in the development of the IB programmes; they continue to contribute as trainers and moderators, providing professional development to faculty from other schools around the world. Significantly, ISA was the first school in the world to offer all three levels of the IB—Primary Years Programme (age 3-12); Middle Years Programme (age 11-16); and Diploma Programme (age 16-19).

International Baccalaureate defines “international education” according to the following criteria:

• Developing citizens of the world in relation to culture, language and learning to live together
• Building and reinforcing students’ sense of identity and cultural awareness
• Fostering students’ recognition and development of universal human values
• Stimulating curiosity and inquiry in order to foster a spirit of discovery and enjoyment of learning
• Equipping students with the skills to learn and acquire knowledge, individually or collaboratively, and to apply these skills and knowledge accordingly across a broad range of areas
• Providing international content while responding to local requirements and interests
• Encouraging diversity and flexibility in teaching methods
• Providing appropriate forms of assessment and international benchmarking.

Within the classroom, many ISA teacher use an approach developed by The Graduate School of Education at Harvard University in 1967. Project Zero was designed to “understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.” ISA has a 10-year relationship with this project; 80 faculty members at ISA are trained in Project Zero’s Visible Thinking practices.

True offered one example of how Visible Thinking impacts teaching at ISA. She explained, “Students in Grade 5 recently studied a unit on poetry. The teacher showed the class a painting by Paul Klee and led the students through a series of responses to the painting: ‘I see...(and they talk about what they observed); I think…(students share the ideas that come to them after looking at the painting); I wonder…(what ideas flow from this consideration). After discussing these prompts, then they start writing their poems. Students share their thinking with the rest of the class, so students are learning from their classmates. This approach is followed with all students, from age five through 16, in all subject areas. Practices such as these help deepen students’ understanding of the knowledge content and provide them with ways of experiencing, thinking about, and coming up with their own ideas about the subject matter.

“Another significant quality defining ISA,” continued True, “is the diversity of the school community. Not any one group dominates. The largest group of children is U.S. citizens, with significant groups from Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, the Nordic countries, Europe, India…. All of these students come from different academic backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds. They speak 50 different languages. We find unity in our similarities.”

In general, students remain in the school for three to five years. “We provide many services to ensure that each individual student and his or her family will make a good transition to the school and to The Netherlands. ISA is so much more than just a school, it’s a community. We provide language tutoring for the family and work to involve them through a series of special events, volunteer opportunities, and a ‘Let’s Go’ group. There are always parents at school.”

There is no boarding at ISA—it’s a fundamental value at the school that each student needs to live in a family situation to be successful. The importance of “family” is the lens through which True measures the accomplishments of Admissions. It also defines ISA’s customizations to PORTAL.

The process of Admissions at international schools is focused on families rather than individuals: correspondence by letter or email is generally addressed to a group that will be transitioning to a new country. The concerns and requirements of each family are unique and complex. Due to the open structure of FileMaker, iR was able to shift the operational focus of PORTAL from individual to family records.

True recounted the relief of moving from a FileMaker-based solution developed in-house to iR’s well-conceived, relational solution. “Initially, we worked with a self-built FileMaker solution. Our technology director wanted to move toward a whole school database. At the time, Admissions would forward files into the school database. We had many data flow challenges.

“With inRESONANCE, we had the same functionality, but the iR solution was relational, not flat as our original database had been. This was an important improvement.”

True, who was a participant in the most advanced track of the “Customizing Your Solution” training at iRUniversity at the time of her interview, is modest about her own skills. “I can do what I need to do, when I need to do it,” she explained. She’s still learning: “Since the migration to the latest version, the way the relationships work is all new.”

ISA’s solution has evolved into a comfortable fit that allows Admissions to operate in its own way. “PORTAL is perfect for keeping track of our data in Admissions. In the ‘Actions’ log, I can see exactly what my colleague has told a family, and see where they are in the Admissions process. I can check availability in a grade. We have lots of built-in reports, so anyone can press a button and see where we are.

“Our reports can be saved as pdf files, so others can read them online. This eliminates lots of paper reporting, minimizing the effect on the environment and necessary time. We receive over 1000 inquiries per year. Our applicants are primarily families who are in the process of considering a move to The Netherlands, so they have many factors to consider.”

 ISA migrated to a new version of PORTAL last summer, and is preparing to add PORTAL WEB SERVICES this summer.

“Our migration was bumpy, but now we’re fine. We learned that we must allow more time than we think we need for the next transition, and schedule more carefully. My office is responsible for Admissions—and also public relations, publications, the web site, and alumni relations. I am more cognizant now of the importance of planning around the entire work flow of the office.”

As she prepared to return to Amsterdam after three days training in Northampton, True articulated what she sees as a major strength of inRESONANCE: “They are thinking from a school perspective and understand how a school operates. They think with you, they do not just do exactly what you ask for. They consider your request, and they might come up with a better way to approach the task.”


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